


Farewell

by Ilyasviel



Series: Black Hole [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 18:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilyasviel/pseuds/Ilyasviel
Summary: Prequel of my incoming series 'Black Hole'Isabela Shepard reaction to Kaidan's message on ME2.





	Farewell

**Author's Note:**

> My Shega fic is finally taking form (it just the third time that I rewrite it xD), soon I’ll begin releasing chapters, but I wrote this little fic as a prequel of it.
> 
> Summary: My interpretation of what Isabela Shepard (Vanguard Paragon with Midnoir/Akuze background) will react to Kaidan’s message. 
> 
> Is angsty, I didn’t write angst usually, so be nice with the fluffy girl who tries it XDDDD
> 
> Hope you like it, and don’t hate me too much if the feelings are dark/sad enough to reach your heart ^^U
> 
> As always, no beta for my works ^^ I'm Spanish, so please, if you find anything I can correct on my fic, let me know!

Kaidan is sitting in a cafe near the harbour in Vancouver. He reached Earth a week ago, after the nightmare that has been Horizon and everything that followed. Seeing Shepard, hurting her, leaving her there, writing a shitty letter… He feels awful about it, but Anderson has been clear to him. He will be the leader of a new special unit of biotics, must keep a low profile and of course, no communication with Cerberus agents. Sadly, that includes Shepard, and he can’t say all the words he wants. Taking a long sip of his mug, he shakes his head, nothing good on dwelling over impossible things.

The breeze brings to him the scent of salt water, cut grass, and something sweet, flowers maybe. Sitting on the terrace, he was enjoying his last day of freedom. He will leave to the base tomorrow. 

Kaidan has just ordered his second mug when a message pings on his omnitool. Opening it, he finds a letter from Liara.

“Hello,

Bela has asked me if I can send you this in her name. It seems that Anderson has asked her not to contact you directly. Don’t worry, is encrypted.

I’m still mad at you for Horizon, but I’m proud of who you become at the same time. Take care out there. 

Liara.”

A video is attached to the message and Kaidan begins to feel nervous. When the waitress brings him his coffee, he takes a deep breath, closing his omnitool and taking a moment to think. God, he has been an idiot with her, and probably destroyed whatever was left of their relationship but… Damn, knowing that she wanted to talk with him is making his stomach go flip-flopping. He decides to go home as soon as possible to see the video. Drinking the coffee as quickly as possible without burning his tongue, he is ready to leave the cafe in less than ten minutes. 

The headquarters are close, and he walks to the room he has assigned with swift steps. Each minute that the video passes unopened on his omni is making feel more anxious about the content. When at last he reaches his room, he locks the door before moving to sit on the bed. As soon as his back touches the headboard, Kaidan opens the screen and pushes the play button.

Shepard’s face appears on the screen, behind the hand that seems to be readying the cam. Once settled, the hand disappears, letting him see her face clearly. She looks thinner than the last time, with dark bags under her eyes. Her hair is long; he didn’t see it when they meet in Horizon, she was wearing her battle bun. Stepping back, she sits on the floor, leaning against what seems to be a big bed. 

Her hand raises, waving to the cam. “Hello, Kaidan. I hope this message found you well.” Her gaze leaves the camera, and he can see her chest moving when she sighs. “I don’t know if I will be alive when you see it. We are about to embark on a mission that everyone defines as ‘suicidal’, but it has to be done. As a good friend of mine loves to say, ‘It has to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong’.” Those words bring a soft smile to her face. Raising her legs, she wraps an arm around them, and her fingers begin to play with the hem of a sleeve. “We are going to cross the Omega Relay and kick the Collectors’ ass in their own home, or die trying it. They are--” Another sigh, but this time she keeps looking at the cam while talking. “Let’s say that they must to be stopped.”

Kaidan’s brain is trying to absorb all the information he is receiving, from her looks to her words. She closes her eyes and leans her head on the mattress. “Horizon has destroyed me, Kai. So many memories-- Just being there made me thought of Ash, on us, on her death, and then… Then I received the hardest wound of my life. I felt my heart being torn from my chest by someone who wanted no part of it anymore.” Her words make something break on Kaidan’s chest, knowing that he was the culprit of that pain. She shackes her head softly, shrugging to the cam. “But don’t trouble yourself, I’m not here to judge your behaviour. In fact, I thank you. I must be grateful for our encounter on Horizon, because I haven’t felt this alive since I woke up. The tearing pain in my chest was the perfect proof I needed to know that I’m still me, that I’m still Isabela Shepard.” 

Silence followed to her words when she touches her chest with a hand. He can see the telling shadow of a tattoo on it, but the tank top she wears cover it almost entirely. Opening her eyes, she looks directly to the cam again. “Anyway, I just wanted to say goodbye, whatever happens on Omega, goodbye, Kaidan.” 

He has made his own bed, but her words hurt him like a knife anyway. And he deserves it but knowing the truth didn’t make it hurt less. She lowers one of her legs, leaning her chin on the raised knee and letting her hand play with the laces of her boots. “After Horizon, I got a lot of time to think. You know… You were both everything I could ever want, and nothing I could ever have. For me, Ilos happened almost yesterday, for you two years had passed.” Another sigh and she move her gaze away from the cam, but Kaidan can swear that he can see her eyes watering. “Now there’s an ocean of sorrow and regrets between us, and I was drowning in it, the waves of pain and unsaid words pushing me under the surface. You were everything to me, but sadly for me, I’m just a memory to you.”

Her hand moved again to her chest, caressing it over the stretching material. “During our firsts days aboard the Normandy, I fell for you so hard that I bruised my knees and my heart, enough to think that I will never fall for anyone again, thinking that maybe this time the universe will let me happy. But after Horizon--” She looks directly into the cam, and he feels her eyes piercing his soul. “I just decided that is safer for me and my sanity to stay on my two feet.” Something that sounded like a sardonic laugh leaves her, and her mouth twitches on the corners. “Besides, I don’t have a heart to give, you took it and thrown it to the stars for me. No more, Kai. My love for you has been a venom those last weeks, but I learned to live with it, and someday, I will expulse it from my organism.”

Kaidan’s fist hits the headboard behind him, the feelings beginning to turn into an overwhelming onslaught over his mind. He did it by himself. He destroyed it, hurting her in the process. What an idiot he has been… Her voice catches his attention again. “You has been the star that brightened my life in the darkest days, but now you have turned into a black hole in my chest, eating me alive from the insides. I can’t do it anymore, Kai. I yield to the universe, I lost that battle, and for once, I will not keep fighting.”

Shepard crawls to the cam, and he can take a look on her face and chest, seeing that the tattoo is in fact, a black hole in the middle of it. Her hand reaches for the cam, fingers covering one side of the image. “Just… If I come back, think better of me.”

The video ended with those words, and he feels each of them weighing his heart and pushing him down again. How in the void has he accomplished the feat of hurting the mighty Commander Shepard this much? How he, who supposedly loved her to the bone, tore her soul apart so deep? 

He manoeuvres his body on the bed, laying on his back. He decides to write a message to Liara.

“Liara, please, if she comes back, just-- just tell her that I’m sorry and I’m proud of her, will you? K.”

Covering his eyes with an arm, he let the pain and sorrow drag him to the land of dreams, where maybe he has had not destroyed the bridges to her heart and can hold her again in his arms.


End file.
